I saw where the new Ford GT was born

I've been in Ford's Product Development Center many times, but never in the basement. I didn't know it had a basement. That's where the GT was born.

By
Joe Dematio

Jun 2, 2015

Ford

I've been in Ford's Product Development Center many times, but never in the basement. I didn't know it had a basement. Media visits to the sprawling 1950s building in the heart of Ford's Dearborn campus usually consist of escorted walks down long, anonymous hallways to darkened presentation rooms or, if you're lucky, to the Design Dome for sneak peeks of future cars.

This Monday morning in May is different. A PR rep leads me down a flight of stairs to the PDC basement in the heart of the industrial complex where Ford Motor Company has created cars for more than half a century. This is the place where product planning and engineering concepts meet the reality of milling and metalworking. We walk along a high-ceilinged corridor lined with huge 2-by-4-framed shelves filled with design molds for wheels and body panels. The shelves are casually labeled with vague scribblings. "Lincoln." "Explorer." Hi-Lo's zip along the concrete floor.

Francesca Montini, a stylish Italian who handles PR for Ford Design, is waiting for us outside a metal door—the very door that only a chosen few had keys to during the hyper-secretive GT design process. It leads to an old milling room with gray concrete floors, tall concrete block walls, and a ceiling lined with pipes, ductwork, and fluorescent lights. A big chunk of the room is cordoned off with glass walls enclosing a huge milling machine, the first ever used at Ford. The remaining L-shaped section is the de facto design studio for the Ford GT supercar. A scale model of the car sits on a wheeled platform.

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"We had only 14 months to develop a show car," recalls Ford vice president of design Moray Callum. "So for each part of the design process, I had a couple of young designers, because we wanted their fresh ideas, but they were paired with a couple of experienced designers, because we didn't have a lot of time."

The room is lined with big storyboard panels that show the Ford GT's design progression. They're labeled with "Design Messaging," "Design Development," "Theme Development," "Details," and are littered with dozens of sketches and drawings.

Moray then walks along three full-size foam models arrayed at an angle, side-by-side. Even in this anonymous gray foam, they are instantly identifiable as the new Ford GT supercar. All have the flying buttresses, but they differ in headlight and hood treatments. "As you can see, we established the theme, volumes, and shapes, including the flying buttresses, early on," says Callum. "These foam models are more than a year old."

Jamal Hameedi, chief engineer of Ford Performance and thus Ford GT chief engineer, motions to the now-famous buttresses: "The tapered fuselage sets up a very clean air path to the rear wing, like in an F1 or LMP car. Our downforce is very clean and efficient, mostly horizontal. The air coming around the body sides does not detach [from the body] and create turbulence."

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"And that," Callum pipes in, "is what helped determine which final design we chose. Most of our aero work was done digitally. After the foam models, we went back to scale models, and then back again to full-size models."

"The powertrain is secondary to aerodynamics in both F1 and LMP cars," says Hameedi. Not that he was intending to knock the GT's twin-turbo V6, I'm sure.

Craig Metros, exterior design chief for Ford of the Americas, leads us to a full-size, painted model with no interior—Mustang red with white racing stripes. It's the first GT in a color other than blue or silver. "We had to do the 2005-06 car as a tribute to the original GT40. But this car is all about moving forward," he says as he motions to the red GT.

Callum walks over to a nearby cabin buck, essentially a roofless Ford GT cabin mounted on a movable platform. Amko Leenarts, global interior design director, gestures to the buck. "The occupants are shoulder-to-shoulder. It's a hyper-small space, so we needed to get volume out of the dash. The steering wheel and the digital cluster give you that immediate feel of racing." The flash-to-pass button on the left side of the steering wheel is an obvious racetrack cue.

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"The simplicity of the interior is part of its charm," Callum adds. "The side-safety structure is in the door itself; the rocker panels [are attached to the door and] come up with the door. Air vents in the door allowed for a smaller instrument panel. And see the carbon fiber at the top of the dash? That's an actual structural piece."

"As a rule of thumb, cosmetic carbon fiber was banned on this car," Hameedi elaborates.

"The seats are a carbon fiber shell," says Metros. "They are fixed, which means the windshield header can be farther back, which enables the tighter cabin. The seatback adjusts 10 degrees, and the steering wheel telescopes 7.8 inches."

I point to the five blank switches on the slim console between the seat bottoms. "Those will all be for dynamic functions," says Leenarts, "including the adjustable rear wing."

"Didn't Craig Metros say the wing's deployment is automatic?" I ask.

"You need to be able to control some things," Leenarts winks. "Like when you pull up to a fancy hotel, you might want that wing up."

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